The link between social categorization and spontaneous social evaluations: A matter of the evaluative implications of the situation?

There is conflicting evidence for the extent to which spontaneous evaluations of outgroup members are influenced by social categorization. Contemporary models of evaluation like the APE model (Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006) imply that spontaneous evaluations are a function of the evaluative implications of the stereotypic associations of a target object and the context in which it is encountered. In this manuscript, we examine the question whether these models can also inform the debate on the link between social categorization and spontaneous evaluations: Specifically, we ask whether the link between categorization and evaluation is moderated by the subset of associations that is implied by a specific context. In two studies, we assessed the extent of categorization in conditions of the Who Said What? -paradigm with very different contextual implications for White versus Black people. This score was then correlated with the evaluative preference for White over Black people in an Evaluative Decision Task. In contexts in which it is an asset or advantage to be Black, there was less anti-Black bias the more an individual categorized by race. The reverse was true in contexts that are likely to activate negative racial stereotypes about Black people. A last confirmatory study with a larger sample did not replicate these correlations. The link between categorization and evaluation, and its contextual moderation, remains elusive.